Integrity:

• The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness (honor, righteousness).
• The state of being whole and undivided; unified, unimpaired or sound in construction; internal consistency or lack of corruption.

This year I want to dive into a study of Integrity.  I was struggling a few months ago with my heart…trying to figure out how to let go of some hurts and disappointments that have somehow defined me.  How can we show love to someone who needs, but doesn’t seek, our forgiveness?  What do we do when God’s choices for us bring us grief rather than peace? How can say we trust in the Lord, when we question His ways?  These questions all have the same answer: We need Integrity.

God nevers lets me get too comfortable.  The more deeply I know Him, the more I see my need for Him, and the more I see my own shortcomings.  I guess I have always struggled with these same questions…but as I grow in the Lord, I realize that I cannot be comfortable with such inconsistency within myself, because He is not.  God has allowed some hard things in my life  some have brought me closer to Him and others have left insidious traces of bitterness that cannot please Him.  At the end of the day, if I do not please the Lord, I am lost.

I went looking for an answer to the difficult questions.  I found Integrity.  I have known that I am accountable to God, that I must obey Him regardless of the circumstances, but this felt so hard.  It is not in our nature to respond with joy to trials, or to return patience to those who are impatient with us, to show love to those who are unloving.  Yet this is just what He commands us to do.  As I sought an answer, He showed me this: when we operate in Integrity (by obedience to Him, choosing righteousness, imitating Christ) God rewards us with…Integrity (stability and wholeness).  I find this to be quite wonderful 🙂

James says: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:1-4).

Jesus says it in another way: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock” (Matthew 7:24-25).  I have written about this verse many times and in many ways so I see God bringing this all full circle for me.

What He is showing me again, and again, is that there can be no peace in our lives unless we submit every portion of it to Him: our thoughts, our relationships, our desires, our work and our hurts…we can hold nothing back from Him, because even if we do, He still has authority over it.  We must reconcile ourselves to Him…reconcile means to make two things agree with one another.  This is done by operating in Integrity, laying down our old ways and following His Way.  There is no wholeness for us without obedience to Him.

Please share in the comments about how He is calling you to Integrity  maybe we can seek this better way, together?